A Few Notes on Medieval Life
by Gaia caecilia
Summary: A hopefully helpful little piece covering the basics of medieval life which people may not know but would find useful for any story involving the medieval world. Written by a medieval period re-enactor focussing on important points, especially the mistakes i most commonly see. Will happily take requests for more info. So far primarily covers clothing/armour/weapons.


A Few Notes on Medieval Period Life.

As an early medieval period Re-enactor from a highly authenticity conscious group, I have noticed a fair few fanfiction writers (particularly in Lord of the Rings as that is the main area of Fanfiction I read) have trouble with various facets of medieval life. I thought therefor that it might be helpful to post as story of notes on the time period to help out any people who would like to get a better idea of how things work, such as fashion, armour, cooking etc.

If I leave anything out that people want to know, feel free to leave a question about it in a review and I will answer in a new chapter. If I personally don't know, I will go to the group I am with to get answers and pass them back. Even though our group primarily cover 900 AD to 1217 AD (end of the baron's revolt/death of King John) in England, several group members also do re-enactment up to the early modern era (around Henry VII/VIII) so if people want later period info, I also know that.

I am putting things in clearly labelled order so you can skip to sections that interest you.

Other note before I get started. In the medieval period, everything on your person marks your status and I will frequently be talking about status markers in this.

Basic Fashion Notes

Clothing

Women's basic kit –  
linen underdress, generally undyed since its underwear and what's the point of expensive dying if no-one is going to see?

Main dress – usually of wool of quality varying for status (the sort of wool used for army blankets for example is very expensive, high status stuff but loose weave, rough stuff obviously isn't). Linen overdresses are more high status, partly because linen is harder to achieve as well as linen doesn't take dye as well as wool. Silk, as you can probably guess is extremely high status

A woman who actually has to do work would have a leather belt because leather doesn't stretch and a working woman would have to carry things on her belt. A woman rich enough not to have to carry anything heavy on her belt (that is to say, can afford people to carry the heavy stuff for her) would either wear a fabric sash or a woven braid such as tablet weave. Some high status ladies would have no belt at all – those would be ones wearing those stereotypical medieval dresses with bell sleeves though they would be side laced rather than back laced (that is to say two sets of lacing, on either side under the arms) or a maid would sew a strip of fabric to each side holding the dress in every damn morning – yes that's very high status, but that is the whole point, showing you can afford something that expensive. (Floaty bell sleeve dress can be worn with sashes but don't generally have lacing on them if you do)

Poorer women's wear (peasants really, or Saxon/Viking era) would have been a dress that is basically two rectangular panels from shoulder to floor with large triangular darts at the side to allow walking space. The sleeves would be wide at the shoulder and narrow at the wrist. Rich ladies dresses are a lot more varying and complicated in design and are generally more tailored to the wearer. The wider the sleeve and more voluminous the skirt, as well as the better the tailoring, shows the status (wealth) of the person wearing the dress. Also, the more impractical the dress as well since if you can afford to wear really impractical clothing then you are obviously rich enough not to do work, especially labour.

All women would cover their hair in the medieval period for modesty – what with depends on period. Since most fantasy doesn't both with this detail, your welcome to ignore this bit. Whatever that lady is wearing, it will be with a cap of some variety. The styles of cap can vary but is basically a bit of linen that holds hair back. If the cap is being worn alone (Saxon/Viking/very early Norman) then it would entirely cover the hair. If with other bits of headgear, it might not. Mostly it is used as something to pin the rest of the headgear to. Other headgear comes in three categories – Wimple, hood or veil. Wimples are either a long rectangular strip of linen or a cupid's bow shaped strip of linen. Hoods are a bit self-explanatory. Veils are generally light floaty bits of either linen or silk and are generally high status. They are either circular or square shaped and are pinned to the cap. Late period veils can have a chin strap and a fabric band round them; can be any length from just below shoulder length to around knee length. Wimples/hoods/veils are either/or jobs unless it's a nun then there is a veil and one of the other two for extra modesty. Fabric bands are only worn round the head by married ladies (or nuns).

Men's clothing – Same as women's but shorter – that is to say, swap dress for tunics in terms of fabric and layers. A man's tunic would be between knee and bum length after having been folded over a belt – generally a leather one.

Legwear (NOTE – women can wear all male legwear under their dresses and frequently did)

Braes – as my group call them, medieval Bermuda shorts – basically loose linen drawstring shorts that went down from mid-thigh to knee length. Poorer men would wear these as sole legwear (very poor men would only have a tunic, legwear is not compulsory for men).

Hose – Trouser (pant) legs without the bit in the middle. Hose is where the word hosiery comes from and are actually the pre-cursor to stockings. Could either have feet or not (though if a women was wearing them they most likely would have feet) and were generally made of wool or linen. This is the main legwear of higher status people of any period Norman and beyond.

Trews/leggings – hate to burst it to people but this is only appropriate legwear for Saxon/Viking/Very early norman (the rohirrim might wear these but the Gondorians and elves most certainly wouldn't for LOTR geeks). Basically medieval trousers/pants. No, don't ask me why they dumped a perfectly good and sensible clothing system for braes and hose but there we are, medieval people are apparently idiots.

Leg bindings – worn with trews/leggings only. Basically a long strip of wool wrapped around the calves. If the character is poor they would be worn alone with/without braes - though still only in the same time period as trews/leggings.

Socks did exist – thick, clumpy wool socks with absolutely no finess whatsoever but they are warm and often had the lanolin still in them so are quite waterproof as well. Can be swapped for foot wraps (see what the Russian army used until recently if you want to look but I think the name pretty much tells you what they are).

Shoes – very basic as footwear goes. Note – a fair number of poor people wouldn't be wearing shoes at all just socks/foot wraps or nothing at all. Most common is ankle high shoes that are either one or two pieces of leather wrapped round your foot. One piece is where the sole and top are all one piece (kinda looks like a Cornish pasty really), two pieces are a sole and a second piece to form the upper. These designs have no heal incidently. Heels on shoes only really come in with the norman period and are specifically for horse riding at first. They mostly don't exist on non-horse riding foot wear until they realise that heels make the shoes last a bit longer. As you get later period (once the crusades have started) you begin to get boots that go higher up the leg – these are purely for men and are fastened with leather laces up the sides that are actually attached to the shoes – nothing like modern lacing for future reference.

Cloaks – earliest forms are either single or double layered wool that is hemmed, though can also be a single layer and wool sewn to a layer of linen in the same colour. This would have started off as a large rectangle held closed by a pin (bone/horn/metal – of varying ornateness/style depending on status). Later on you get short circular cloaks for men that then develop different coloured linings, often to show wealth but also so a person could show his house colours. Not surprisingly, this is a noble thing.

Mantles – a large wool circular poncho. Women's only item generally - bar high status priest robes – can still be seen to be worn by some priests. Made from one piece of fabric.

MISCELAINEOUS INFO – decorating clothing – decoration is a status symbol. Low status people would have had no more decoration than very simple linear embroidery stitches. People made all their own clothes and a poor person didn't have the time to spend on embroidery. Higher ranking people (women in particular) would have either had detachable bands of embroidery or decorative woven bands made by methods like tablet weave round the hem and cuffs and, to a far lesser extend due to headgear requirement for women, round the neck. The décor would be removable because every time the clothes went to be laundered (more often than many people think) they would also be re-dyed to keep the colours fresh as natural dye fades a lot quicker and you didn't want to dye the decorations.

Fabric Notes

All fabric is very expensive any time pre-industrialisation though 11th Century or later the very well off (nobility) would probably be able to afford more than one set of clothes though higher merchant class people most likely could (especially later on in the medieval period) probably afford a nicer tunic to change into for formal events.

Due to the price of fabric people would NOT be tearing their tunics all over the place like people seem to have in many stories. People would have kept separate strips of linen salvaged from leftovers from making other things to use as bandages. Clothing was very carefully looked after.

Fabric would often have patterns in as the weaver would be weaving day in, day out, which is very boring so they would put in a number of simple designs to keep themselves mildly less bored. These patterns wouldn't however be very big. They also wouldn't be stripes as this is actually a matter changing the weaving yarn all the time which is far more time consuming and more of an irritant than less boring.

**Fabric types**  
Wool is the most common fabric, though it was rather lighter than today's woven wool but a lot rougher.  
Linen is a bit more expensive but common, peasants would mostly have worn wool.  
Silk is pretty much nobility only and unless for VERY formal occasions more used for trim on other garments (bands of embroidered silk on fine wool tunics around the cuffs and neckline mostly, as well as on sashes of high status ladies dresses).  
Velvet is available in late (high) medieval period but once again is ridiculously expensive. The first mention of Velvet mentioned in England is 1399 by King Richard II in his will, as he wished to be buried in Velvet – this gives an idea of how high status it is as a fabric. Basically, that's a royalty only job there.  
Leather – quite expensive in bulk – you have to kill an animal to get it and those are really rather expensive so it wasn't done so often. Small amounts off leather such as for pouches and belts were fairly common especially as these didn't tend to wear out too much (except for shoes, hence shoes being a bit of a status symbol and boots really being one). Leather in larger amounts tends to be reserved for the quite well off.  
Fur – This is a bit of a difficult one. In earlier period stuff, fur is actually only low status since you would only keep it as a fur if it wasn't good enough to turn into leather or parchment. Fur only becomes high status when you get rare animals such as certain varieties of squirrels and other small rodents which require a number of furs to make anything. At this point suddenly all the rich people want exotic furs to show off.

**Colours**  
Fabric dying any time before synthetic dyes (1800's) is a status symbol. Here is a short guide to the colours with a couple of basic rules. Numero uno – the darker the shade, the higher the status because you have to dye multiple times to get darker shades. Duo, its perfectly fine for lower status people to have undyed fabrics. For wool that's brown/grey/cream colours, depending on your sheep, and linen is any shade of cream you feel like. Silk, due to status level doesn't really come in undyed.

Easiest to achieve (bar the basic undyed fabrics) is Yellow which is achieved with the aid of onion skins. WARNING: a woman wearing yellow headgear is advertising that she is a lady of negotiable affection (A prostitute if you couldn't already work that out).  
Red (madder dye) is a bit harder to achieve and its rarity is a matter of geography that I won't bore you with (unless someone specifically asks anyway).

Blue (woad) as anything but a very light shade is fairly high status as woad, as a dye, is an absolute pain in the posterior. Once again, I won't bore you why unless anyone asks.  
Green is high status, you have to dye a fabric alternately with both yellow and blue dyes as there is no green dye. The fact you are using multiple dyes makes green expensive.  
Purple can be summed up as Royalty and Religion. Though there are multiple ways to achieve purple (most famously, Tyrian Purple, which is made from the shells of a Murex (a type of mollusc)) they are all very expensive so only kings and bishops and above could afford purple clothing of any shade. Obviously, for the fanfiction universes you can, by and large, ignore the religion bit.

Black is high status due to the fact it is achieve by multiple dye jobs until the colour is dark enough to look black. Duh, this is expensive. Incidentally, it is because of this that we refer to something being 'the new black' – it's the new expensive must have colour to show off with.

Gold, once again, duh, it's made with spun gold (as in the metal), quite obviously really expensive – ooo, hello royalty…

Weapons and Armour

Quick note first. Metal is really expensive. Almost all of the weapons used at the Battle of Hastings had metal recycled from the roman era – very little was mined during the dark ages for some reason, possibly technological regress. As we get later on in the time period metal, like everything else, gets cheaper and more available but this is why there is very little in the direction of weapons finds from battles during the early medieval period – metal was so valuable that they would have gone and retrieved it after the battle.

**Maille (very commonly incorrectly spelt as Mail)**  
Two types – chain or leaf (that scale type armour that looks as if its made with a number of little metal leaves). Chainmaille is the normal, leaf is a bit niche (if you have any more questions on leafmaille I can pass onto my group's weapons master who knows about all there is to know about anything weapons related – he's a little bit obsessed actually).  
There are several types of maille shirts out there and here is a quick list of variations.  
Byrnie – short, just below knee-length maille shirt with short sleeves. Worn either very early period or by relatively low status people that the lord wanted protected in a fight (eg sergeants and NCO type level warriors).  
Hauberk – knee length maille shirt, long sleeved generally, minor nobility (squires/low level knights) or just early period when metal is very expensive.  
Haubergeon – Mid-calf length, long sleeved – high status  
_Other items made of maille_  
Chausses – basically maille versions of hose – generally only worn with the latter two varieties of maille shirts as you had to be very rich to afford these  
Coif – basically a hood, could either be separate or integral to the maille shirt, once again, generally not done on a byrnie. Could be worn with a helmet or not.  
Mitons – as the name suggests, these are glove/mittens made of maille. Can either just be a plain maille mitten or maille attached to leather gloves, the latter being a lot cheaper and makes it easier to hold weapons.  
Camail/Aventail – the maille collar attached to helmets sometimes.

**Other armour types  
**Gambeson – A jacket worn either as or with armour. Can be either made with padded layers of linen or with leather. If made with leather then it isn't necessarily padded – padding a leather gambeson was a slightly later period idea (presumably because of the cost of fabric). Can be as simple as a large rectangle with a head hole and sleeves sewn on that is laced at the sides. A padded linen one (would have been layered with wool as well) would have been sew across the body (in diamond patterns for earlier and vertical lines for later) to stop the padding sagging down to the bottom.

Helmets – mostly made out of metal but can be done with leather, especially hardened leather which is almost as good, and a lot better than nothing. The shape depends both on the relative smithing ability of the time period and what the use was.  
Earliest is the basic conical helm which starts off being made of riveted plates but, as they get better at smithing, becomes a one piece of metal affair since rivets allow weapons to catch on the helm which can cause damage. This is best for the traditional battle field where people are waving weapons at the wearer since the shape helps the weapons bounce off and lessen blows. Generally a nosepiece is standard. Another variation is the Spangenhelm which is one with the two flaps over the ears that were articulated (could move) – a generally Germanic design of helmet.  
Kettle helmets start early C11th and are primarily an infantry design. Basically a wide brimmed metal helmet which was good for stopping blows from above so best when against cavalry or in a siege. A variation thereof was used during the two world wars (think of those metal hats that looked a bit like wide brimmed bowls on a bloke's head) but the medieval version was somewhat larger, more angular and riveted.  
Helms – These are C12th onwards really and high status – knights and above entirely. The enclosed helm is a cylindrical, flat top design with a fixed visor – generally early C12th. It had the major problem of the fact it vastly reduced your line of sight. By the mid C12th the great helm has come along. Generally the same design but the back goes all the way down to the neck rather than only half way down the head like on an enclosed helm. Both of these were worn over a maille coif. Both could be decorated by metal décor, painting or laquer. Knights were fans of showing off and by this point all had their own colours and heraldry – at least to an extent.  
Any helmet with a visor which could be raised is extremely later period and into the land of plate armour C15th and later. I'm afraid if you want further info on this or plate armour generally, you'd have to ask as I will have to go ask the weapons master as he is the only one I know who knows lots on that subject as it is very late. Even in the C14th which is the first part of the high medieval period, plate is only beginning to come in and is in small bits added to padding and chain armour rather than an entire suit of armour. Feel free to ask though and I will try to get the information and condense it into what is wanted to know.

Misc – most helmets and pretty much all later period helmets were worn with an arming cap or coif - a close fitting hat that resembles a baby bonnet. Though not all coifs are padded and are not entirely military clothing, all arming caps are and when worn under helmets were padded to protect the head. Theses would also go under maille coifs for the same reason.

**Weapons  
**Spears – Basic soldier weaponry, as wielded by 'squishies'/cannon fodder types. Has a very low metal count so is cheap, though knights use them in the earlier period as spears are the pre-cursors to lances as well. Fairly easy to use and you can be trained to use one very quickly (my blind as a bat, middle aged, over weight dad can fight with one without wearing glasses after a couple of lessons so it really isn't all that hard).

Swords – A weapon for rich people. In the early medieval period it is the equivalent of owning a Ferrari now. Only the rich could afford that much metal and it took skill to make one so it's a very high status weapon that was as much about being seen to be rich enough as it was about being a good weapon. No, it is not just the shape of a sword that makes it a phallic symbol.

Knives – comes in multiple forms. Generally, daggers are what you're talking about here. Blades of anything up to 10/12 inches at which point they really become short swords. There is also the weapon known as a Seax (take your pick on the spelling, pronounced say-axe). This is the weapon after which the Saxons are named. It's anything from a long knife (a-la Legolas) to a short sword (hobbits – think Sting) the latter of which is called a Lang Seax. In Britain there is a version known as a broke-back seax or, more often, a scram (short for scramseax). This is a single bladed weapon with the blunt side made very clunky and heavy. This is because chainmaille blunts weaponry very fast so they would bash the enemy with the blunt side where the armour was and when they found soft bits (eg skin) then they'd turn the blade on the person. NOTE the seax is basically a Saxon weapon (can be used for rohirrim) and gets dumped fairly quickly for other knife varieties – probably mostly due to racial prejudice more than anything else though if you were poor it was more likely you'd be using them later on if you happened to have one lying around as, hey, it's a weapon, who cares if fashion says its outdated? They just weren't made post Saxon era.

Bows– Contrary to common belief, they are not half as obsolete as people think. I happen to know with a battle strength longbow, you can put an arrow through the armour plate of a light tank. The MOD were not overly impressed when an archer did so after some soldier at a british military base challenge an archer to use an arrow at battle distance on their light tank and the arrow went through the armour plate because it cost several thousand pound to fix and the tank in question was going to Afghanistan in a few weeks. The archer in question was sent a letter asking him politely not to do it again and the dead armour plate (which he had framed and mounted on his wall). If you don't believe me, I can get hold of exactly who it was who did that so you can go ask him yourself. The man is an acquaintance of our group's head archer and has told me who it is but I have a bad memory for names. Anyway…  
Longbows are your basic bow. Generally made of yew, over 5' in length. Recurve bows are generally a bit shorter and the defining feature of which is the tips of the bow curve away from the archer and bend back when the bow is drawn, adding extra velocity when shot – imagine a cupid's bow really. If a bow involves more than one wood it is a composite bow.  
Arrows – I won't insult your intelligence by giving a description. Only thing to mention here is types of arrow heads.  
Bodkin are basic points – square shaped headed spikes that pierce chainmaille very well lengths get shorter the latter on you are both to save metal and because it still did the job just as well when very short as long, simple and easy to make.

Broad heads – had two to four blades original a flat blade which just left a line shaped cut then, when construction skills got better, you got cross shaped hole (four blases) which are harder to patch up and finally three bladed arrowhead which were, in those day almost universally fatal because you couldn't sew up the hole in the middle of the trefoil shaped hole. All varieties cause huge bleeding in the victim.  
Barbed heads – Flat heads which have points extending from the back of the arrow head which make it so they are hard to pull out and do more damage coming out than going in.  
Leaf bladed – flat head type with a blade the shaped of a leaf – not very common style but quite pretty.  
Fire arrows – There are several ways of making fire arrows. The metal head design involves a twisted cage shaped arrow head in which an oil soaked rag was placed and lite. This is most easily re-usable type. Alternately you can have an extra-long arrow with no head and just tie oil soaked rags to that – no special head required but won't pierce anything and won't stick in anything so can be far less effective than one with a metal head.  
Crossbows – far lower skilled weapons which were used with shorter bolts. They only became mechanised (as in pistol type crossbow) much later on though sometimes tools were used to draw them as they had a far higher poundage (strength of shot) than ordinary bows. These are far more powerful weapons but are slow to use as they take time to set up for each shot whereas a good archer could have several arrows in the air at a time. These are a highly effective way of taking down just about anything in armour.

Axes  
Hand axe – approximately two foot handle with a fairly small blade – good for fairly low status people as has low metal count.  
Dane axe – Wielded by the Huscarls (the body guard of the Saxon English kings) specifically though not solely, these are axes with generally 3' to 4' handles and very thing hardened steel blades excellent for cutting. If used as a status symbol the shaft could be as long as 5 ½' long though those quite often were not battle weapons and were highly decorated.  
Bearded axe – one with a long blade extending downwards (giving the impression of the axe having a beard). The extra length of the blade lowered cutting ability so it went out of fashion and slowly blades got narrower resulting in, at one point, some axes with a blade that was simply a spike added laterally to the shaft.

Maces – Take a solid wood shaft and add a lump of metal to the end to make very nasty blunt force trauma weapon. Aforementioned lump of metal sometimes was ridged just to make it nastier.

Flails – Nice big wooden shaft with a lump of metal attached by a chain – add spikes to the ball and get a morning star just to be more damaging and unpredictable than it was. Lovely.

**Shields – always made with at least one layer of wood (though later periods tended to have more as this was stronger but heavier), generally covered with linen or leather.  
**Circular – Flat wooden shields that were (obviously) circular in shape. Had a boss behind which was the grip  
Kite – Starts off tear drop shaped, though later on the top is flattened off. Very early ones have no curve and a boss as the kit is and evolution of the circular made by the Normans. After a little while, the boss is dropped in favour of leather straps which allow the shield to be attached to the arm rather than being held and straining thee wrist.  
Heater – evolution of the Kite where the length is shortened. This is the classic heraldic shield. While it provides a lot less cover that is made up by the fact it is far more gainly to use.  
Buckler – small shield attached to the offhand (non-weapon) which was the only generally made of metal as was used by infantry as a weapon in its own right.

**Notes on wearing/using medieval armour and weapons.**

All armour would go over padding which would go over clothing. The only thing that would go over armour was a surcoat.

Any type of bow would have been carried with a secondary weapon such as some variety of long knife, even though the bow was the main weapon which did take years to learn to use.

Archers were roundly hated by everyone else on accounts they were really hard to defend against and people didn't like being killed at a distance for some reason. The head of armies tended to like them though, especially on their side. Crossbow, a lower skilled more dangerous weapon were, surprise surprise, even less popular.

Other things worth knowing

They did have snips (a u-shaped piece of metal with opposing blades at the ends) and later conventional scissors in the medieval period so no need to trim hair or cut thread with knives or anything.

Fire lighting – achieved with a flint and steel (though anything harder than steel could be used instead of flint). The 'steel' in question is a wide strip of metal that looked a bit like a flattened 'D' shape. This would be scraped across the sharpest edge of a flint findable at high speed with a piece of tinder cloth held against the flint or very nearby to catch the sparks. Tinder cloth is small pieces of linen cloth cooked in anaerobic conditions (Clay bowl covered by sand is the easiest way to achieve this) to make a cloth form of charcoal which catches easily. Once the cloth had caught a spark, blow on it to make it catch a little more then surround by hay, straw or other things that catch very easily and blow on them until they catch fire. While it is technically possible to light a candle straight from a flint and steel, it is generally very difficult to achieve and it is easier just to use a fire to light the candle.

Easily available materials – Wood and clay. As already mentioned, metal is expensive so is not used much. Most things would be made of either wood or clay, depending on where you are for which is more popular. In places like Kent where there is clay soil – clay would be used for virtually everything it could be since it was literally cheep as dirt. Where there wasn't clay soil but lots of trees wood is obviously the favoured material though there is a fair deal of crossover for those materials due to both trade and the fact that neither can be used for everything since each has its disadvantages.  
Horn and bone are also very common materials. These could be carved and used for small items such as needles, spoons and suchlike. Horn particularly was very much the plastic of its day as when heated up is can be melded in to a number of different shapes.

Musical instruments – mostly string or wind so Lyres, Psalteries, harps etc for wind and wood or bone flutes though there is a sort of Viking panpipe-type instrument out there as well. Will leave off this subject for now as it is a present research project I can go on about for hours. If you want to know more, feel free to message me. Be specific or else I really will go on for pages on both the instruments and music.

**That I think, is all for now. If you want more info on any topic mentioned, or even on ones not mentioned but you are interested in, put it in a review and I will try and find out the answer. These answers will be posted in new chapters so that anyone can read them.**

**GaiaCaecilia**


End file.
